Here’s my terrible confession. I am writing this blog just to publish some recent pictures of Powder. Don’t worry, I have more from this great Sunday Fall afternoon. You’ll get to see all of them, eventually.
Here’s our self protrait.
It’s my blog. I can do whatever I want! See how my eyebrows match her hair. If I want, I can have half my hair match Powder, but I would never admit that to anyone! Let’s just leave it at my eyebrows for now. I love it when my horse and I match!
Powder and I are heavy into training now. It occured to me to think about the phases of pressure that I use to ask her to do things. Occasionally, my pressure phase has to get a little high to convince her to do these things. The thinking is that you use enough pressure to get the slightest movement and “the release” from pressure is what teaches. When the pressure gets too high, Powder thinks about kicking me. She will go right up into a high pressure phase when it suites her. Her first pressure is the movement of her head, the next is ears back and then immediately her highest pressure is a swift kick. These phases happen in about 3 seconds.
My job is to try not to go there and if it does happen, not to be there!